The Cliché Life
by elixirsoflife
Summary: ONE SHOT: In which Cassia Latimer is locked in Dungeon Ten with a mildly claustrophobic Albus Potter and a note that demands them to sort out their sexual tension. Which Potter then promptly sets on fire. [cover by steadily@tda]
**Written for Magenta Robes./Musing's Taylor Swift Ultimate Challenge on HPFF**

 **Song:** ** _Sparks Fly_** **\- Taylor Swift (obviously)**

 **Prompt: 'Students from different houses stuck in an area somewhere e.g. the Room of Requirement'.**

 **Interesting tidbit: the characters/plot I based this off originally came from a fanfiction I wrote, completed (but never published) quite different from this. I'll probably talk about it in my MTA at HPFF if anyone's interested about details (I'll probably put it up on my tumblr in a bit too) ;)**

* * *

 _ **17:12**_

If you were to ask me whether I ever longed to live out a cliché, the honest answer probably would've been 'no' an hour ago. I mean, who wanted their lives to be so unoriginal that the events in them were literally attempted to be avoided by any self-respecting person? Clichés were ghastly. Sickeningly cute little conventions of Fifi LaFolle novels wrapped in shiny pink wrapping paper with polkadotted bows on top, so small you could cup them in the palm of your hands if you so wished. From there onwards, it was your choice to either crush them or embrace them.

Usually, I would've chosen crush.

That was _before_ I found myself snogging Al Potter in Dungeon Ten after being locked in there by none other than Rose Weasley and Scorpius Malfoy.

I was an embarrassment to the house of Slytherin.

* * *

 _ **16:28**_

Friday, as usual, brought with it a strong sense of relief since the week was now officially over and as I stepped out of Potions with Scorpius, I couldn't help but sigh exaggeratedly and crack my neck to release the tension that had accumulated there recently.

As always, he winced. "Must you always do that? It's such a disgusting habit."

"So is snogging Weasley every chance you get," I said breezily, "but you don't hear me complaining."

"You complained about it fifteen minutes ago. And in Charms this morning. And in Arithmancy yesterday."

"I've gotten a lot better! Before, it used to be every single time you snuck away to suck her face off."

"I don't suck her face off! I'll have you know that I'm actually a fantastic kisser," he said indignantly, fixing the collar of his robes with the air of someone most affronted.

"Weasley only told you that so you didn't cry."

Before he could retort, the ginger she-devil herself appeared beside us, slipping her hand into her boyfriend's with an ease that once would've irritated me to no end. There was still a faint tang of bitterness in my mouth; I had grown up with Scorpius, had known him as an innocent, conniving little boy and consequently thought I was an expert on who was worthy enough to date him.

For the five years I'd known her, Rose Weasley had been nothing more than an insufferable, foul-mouthed Chimaera who had once taken far too much credit for her parents' actions in the war. Up until recently, she was the furthest thing from worthy in my mind, but after a revoltingly public declaration of her love for Scorpius following months of messing around with each other's feelings, I was forced to admit that she wasn't all bad.

That didn't mean I was completely nice to her, though.

"Ah, Weasley," I said loftily. "Joining in on private conversations once again, I see."

Scorpius sent me a look and rolled his eyes. Pecking her on the cheek, he said, "She's just joking, we're not having a private conversation. And if it was, it'd be about something _much different_." He sent me a meaningful glance.

"I don't know what you mean."

Of course, I knew what he meant. It was blindingly obvious what he meant, but there was no way in hell I was going to admit to doing something I regretted, no matter how enjoyable it had been in the moment. It was a moment of insanity that we had sworn not to mention ever again. Ever again.

You see, there was another reason why I wasn't so partial to Rose Weasley and that other reason came with messy black hair, brilliant green eyes and a smirk the size of Africa. Al Potter was, unfortunately, Weasley's partner in crime and because Scorpius was also on alright terms with him, I had to see him much more often than I could handle.

Potter was the single most annoying guy in Hogwarts. He thought that he was Merlin's gift to mankind since he was a bloody _Potter_ and had been Gryffindor's Seeker ever since third year and because girls liked to throw themselves at him so frequently that he completely ignored their attention. Not to mention, he was ridiculously aggravating when it came to Potions - I had almost stabbed him more than once when I'd been partnered with him last year. Potter was the poster boy of Gryffindor and infuriatingly so.

He was also, incidentally, someone I had snogged last weekend.

It was a complete accident.

And all his fault.

"Are you talking about when you snogged Al?" Weasley asked in her usual brusque manner.

"I don't know what you're talking about," I said.

"You snogged Al. Last weekend. In the Charms corridor."

"I'll have you know, Weasley, I actually have _excellent_ taste," I said indignantly. I even halted in my path down the corridor to narrow my eyes menacingly at her and toss my dark hair back, looking like the epitome of unattainable.

Unfortunately, my show was ruined when someone slung their arm over my shoulder.

"Yeah, Rosie," chimed an infuriatingly smug voice. "I'm excellent."

I hated him.

"Potter, move your hand before I cut it off with my wand."

He removed it, his fingers trailing softly against my upper arm as he did so. "Always so fiesty, Latimer. I thought Slytherins were the cold, calculating ones."

I narrowed my eyes. "Slytherins are the ones that deliver on their word."

He grinned wolfishly. It was a smile I was all too familiar with: the wicked one with one side lifted higher than the other, practically screaming that he thought he had won. "Is that a promise?"

Weasley and Scorpius had been watching this exchange with a sort of morbid curiosity. When I turned my eyes back in their direction, softening at the sight of my best and oldest friend, I was greeted with his girlfriend's self-entitled eye roll, an action she was much too fond of.

"You have a lot of sexual tension for people that didn't snog in the Charms corridor last weekend," she said in an infuriatingly superior voice.

At the same moment I bared my teeth at her, her cousin actually did something smart for once in his life and replied, "How about you run along to the common room, Rosie? In other words, leave it."

Weasley wasn't as smart despite her impeccable grades. She lifted a shoulder in a half-shrug. "All I'm saying is that you two are just being plain annoying at this point by denying your feelings. It's much more easier to just listen to my advice. Take it from someone who's been through all this."

All I wanted to take was her wand to shove it up her arse and tell her to piss off.

"Rosie. Shut up."

Yes, Rosie. Shut up.

"She has a fair point," Scorpius said upon noticing my challenging look. My mouth fell open, betrayed, as he went on to explain himself. "The two of you clearly fancy each other so why not save everyone a lot of grief and accept it?"

I smiled venomously. " _Or_ you can piss off," I said in a sweet voice and clapped my hands together. "Doesn't that sound like a fine idea?"

Weasley's laugh was just as saccharine. "No, not really. But you know what does? _This_."

With that, she whipped out her wand and flicked it once; a surge of energy knocked me back, colliding into Potter and taking him with me as I was sent flying into the dungeon situated right behind us. We staggered onto the floor, sitting up just in time to see Weasley wave goodbye before the door slammed shut.

* * *

 _ **16:44**_

BANG.

BANG.

BANG BANG BANG.

"Is anyone there?" I called half-heartedly. "Literally _anyone_?"

Fifteen minutes had passed since Weasley and the traitor had locked us in the dungeon and had happily sprinted off, leaving us nothing but a note they'd slid underneath, reading _SORT OUT THE SEXUAL TENSION AND WE'LL LET YOU OUT_.

Potter had promptly set fire to it.

He was pacing the classroom now, agitatedly running a hand through his hair. "Banging on the door isn't going to _do_ anything, Latimer. For Merlin's sake, I thought you were supposed to be smart."

I glared at him from where I sat on a bit of the floor. Even though I had cleaned it with my wand, there was still something so filthy about squatting down on it, but I didn't have any choice it seemed. The dungeon was nothing more than a barren room, occupied only by dust, spiders and gloom.

"There's nothing else we _can_ do, Potter - unless you have any bright ideas in that thick head of yours?"

His glare was just as lethal and I was glad for it. This was what I was familiar with: arguing with each other, seeking out each other's weakest points and goading each other to the edge. Not being pulled into a snog and a pretty thorough one at that, irritatingly enough. _That_ was just wrong, a terrible idea to put into action.

A memory of Potter pressing kisses along my neck flashed into my mind.

 _Fucking terrible, I tell you._

"Alright so _Alohomora_ didn't work," he acknowledged with a hiss. "Doesn't mean something more powerful won't." He aimed his wand at the door. "You might want to get up."

Panic rose within me. Scrambling to get away, I squawked, "What on _earth_ do you think you're doing? _Nothing's_ going to work, can't you see?"

" _Bombarda_!"

Bright light smashed into the door with a tremendous bang and ricocheted off it, flying through the air violently. Without a second's thought, I threw myself onto the ground out of harm's way. For a few seconds, I laid there to be safe, my ears still ringing from the loud clap of the spell.

"I swear down on Godric's grave, I am going to fucking lose my shit!" Potter exclaimed. "I'm _amazing_ at that spell."

Grimacing, I pushed myself up and hastily removed all dust from my robes. A familiar spark of anger surged through me - he could've gotten me hurt or even _killed_ with his stupidity. "I told you it wouldn't work."

"Well, at least I tried something useful," he bit back. "All you did was yell for help."

"Because we're in Dungeon Ten, you arsehole!"

"Well, _thank you_ for that. I can now die peacefully knowing which dungeon I was trapped in during my sixth year!"

"Dungeon Ten can only be opened from the outside," I snapped frustratedly, wanting nothing more than to kick him in the face. Hard. "It's the Carrows' Dungeon."

My words finally shut him up. All traces of fury left his face, leaving only a deeply disturbed look. You see, Dungeon Ten was what the Carrows had used as their favourite detention chamber back in 1997-98 when they were running the school. Delinquents could get in, but they couldn't get out unless the door was opened from the outside, usually by the Carrows when detention was over.

With a sigh, I resigned myself to sitting down on the dusty ground again. Flicking my wand, I settled down in a newly cleaned spot and carefully wrapped my robes around me, unwilling to dirty it.

Now that Potter had given up, I was free to curse Weasley and the traitor in my mind. There was no doubt about it: they had _planned_ this. It was convenient how Scorpius had launched into a conversation about the Incident right outside this dungeon at a time when they knew Potter would be around, ready to do what he did best and infuriate me.

"We need to get out of here," Potter said abruptly. He rose and moved toward the door, hands roaming over it, as if searching for a visible weakness. "I can't handle being trapped in small, dark spaces. It fucking puts me on edge."

I wondered why he was admitting this so freely to someone who would readily use it against him. I mean, _I_ would certainly never trust him with a phobia of mine.

"It's not going to work," I cut into his frantic inspection. "I told you that this is the Carrows' Dungeon -"

He spun around, venom on his tongue once more. "Latimer, would you _shut up_? Or did Daddy not tell you how his best friends managed to reinforce this door?"

I sprang up defensively, pushing forward until I was practically chest to chest with him, ready to defend the family name if needs be. "Those allegations were never proved."

He stepped forward, teeth bared. "Everyone knows the truth, Latimer. Your family have been Dark for centuries - why else would you be great friends with the Malfoys? You were all over Voldemort's regime, you were just smart enough not to get caught at it."

" _Prove it._ "

Hatred for him boiled in my veins. He thought he was so high and mighty, sitting on his throne as the mighty Potter boy, son to the greatest wizard in the world. Arrogance exuded from him, setting my nerves on edge. That was all there was between us, nothing pleasant or warmhearted, not even "sexual tension".

* * *

 _ **17:05**_

We were bathed in silence and the dim light that shone out of our wands. I was braced against the door again, thinking up ways to murder Weasley and the traitor when I got out, and Potter was wearing a hole in the door as he paced back and forth.

"I feel like I've been trapped here for hours," he groaned in frustration. "It has to have been _at least_ one and half."

"It's been thirty five minutes, Potter."

"You're fucking joking me, right?" He threw me an incredulous look. When all I did was give him a stony look, he let out another _woe-is-me_ groan. "That's it. I'm going to murder Rosie. I'm going to have to go to fucking Azkaban, but it's something that just has to be done."

"Here's a tip for you," I said dryly. "Don't tell someone that you're planning to do a crime. Especially if that person can't stand your guts."

If I had known what ball would be set rolling with those words, I would have held my tongue. At the time, however, I was under the impression that I was currently holding court with the Potter I'd known at the very start of last year, the one that had genuinely despised me until he had begun to find my reactions amusing. No matter how sneaky I'd been with my revenge, he had started to take it as yet another challenge, one he would gladly meet.

So when I told him that I couldn't stand him, he suddenly switched. No longer was he anxious and irritable because we were trapped in a dungeon with no way out until Weasley and the traitor took pity on us before we starved; no, he was _smug_ and _smirking_ and - and - _annoyingly good looking._

"You seemed to be fine with me last weekend," he said, taking a step toward me. "More than fine, I'd say."

I glared at him. "We're not discussing that."

He lifted a shoulder in a half-shrug and took another step forward. I watched him suspiciously, my mind racing as I tried to think of a way to stop him from cornering me without seeming weak.

"Well, we're trapped in here for a reason. Rosie and Malfoy want us to talk it out so I think we are going to discuss it. Otherwise, we might end up an a similar situation."

Without meaning to, he had given me an idea and I latched onto it with claws. "So why don't we pretend we did? We can agree to be civil for a while and say we both admitted it was a lapse in judgement and then they'll leave us alone."

Another step.

"No, I don't think I can do that."

"And why not?" I glared at him again.

"You see, Latimer, I'll readily admit that I'm a pretty shit actor," he said, coming closer still. "And I don't know about Malfoy, but Rosie knows me pretty well. She'll see right through me."

"Not if you try hard enough."

Potter stopped in his tracks, a couple of arms' lengths away. The white light from our wands illuminated his face, making his eyes in particular glint brilliantly. The green of his irises was getting to me, enticing a breath away.

"You kissed me back," he said finally. His shit-eating smirk was gone now, leaving an oddly open face that sent my guard flying up instantly.

"You kissed me first," I threw back.

He shrugged. "Yeah, I did."

Not quite sure where he was going to lead me, I fumbled for a response in my brain. This conversation was exactly what I didn't want and now I had been tricked into facing it head on.

"Well, then you have yourself to blame for all this," I said. "Especially because you went and blabbed to Weasley and then she locked us in here."

"You're right. Strange how I don't regret it, though."

My heart spasmed. Gritting my teeth in annoyance, I snarled, "What game do you think you're playing, Potter? Because whatever it is, _I'm not interested_."

He ran a hand through his hair and tossed me a smirk. I hated how it made me feel, how it made me recall his lips pressed against mine, how I saw sparks fly whenever he sent me that crooked smile.

"You know I can't believe I'm admitting this," he confessed, taking another step towards me, "but for once, I'm not playing any games, Latimer. I kissed you and I didn't regret it. In fact, I'd say I enjoyed it a lot."

"Glad to know I'm still skilled."

His eyes dropped to my mouth. "Yeah. Yeah, you are. Even better than I thought you'd be."

Against my best intentions, my cheeks flooded with blood at his insinuations. The rational voice in my mind was furious to find that part of me reveled in that, in knowing that I had driven Potter to imagining such things just by being abrasive. I'd gotten to him in the way that few girls could honestly claim to have done. It wasn't something I should have been proud of, but there it was: triumph was colouring my thoughts. I only hoped he couldn't read my mind.

"As fascinating as that is," I fought to keep my voice flat and uninterested, "I don't care. That snog? It meant _nothing_. I kissed you back for the sake of it so don't bother reading into it."

He didn't look swayed. Tilting his head to the side, he mused, "Now why do I find that hard to believe?"

"Because you're so fucking arrogant," I spat. "I can't fucking _stand_ -"

"I fancy you."

He needed to stop right there. Needed to backtrack and play it off as yet another ploy to piss me off, needed to go back to the other side of the room and panic about being trapped because his words were going to affect me and I didn't like the way things seemed to be going.

We were shifting. His words were causing the ground beneath me to slip away like quick sand, hooking around my ankles to drag me down into the unknown. I was fighting to get away, but the closed door at my back and his bloody green eyes pinned me down, forcing me to face the change.

"No, you don't."

"I do. Have for a while now."

I hissed like a cat in a corner. "Don't fucking try that with me. Twenty minutes ago, you were accusing my family of being Death Eaters!"

"I was angry," Potter said softly. "And panicking. I've had mild claustrophobia ever since I was little and I - I lashed out. I don't think you're Dark, Latimer."

"I don't give a damn what you think."

He took that last step. We were chest to chest again and mine was heaving, not from anger, but from a dizzying breathlessness. When he stood close enough to touch, my mind forgot to remind that this was a bad idea, that he was completely wrong for me and I could not stand him. It was funny how the lines between despising someone and wanting them blurred beyond recognition before your very eyes.

"I think I fancy you," he murmured, gazing down at me. "And I think you fancy me too."

I swallowed. "That's irrelevant."

"But true?"

" _Irrelevant_."

He was leaning forward now. I held my breath as he gently nudged my nose with his own, almost playfully, his arms snaking out to press his hands against the door on either side of me.

"Is that so?" he breathed.

"Yes."

"And why is that?"

"Because - because we're not right for each other." I could feel myself softening and caring less and less as I did it. "We argue most of the time we spend together and purposely piss each other off purely for the satisfaction. We _like_ doing that, like being enemies. We're complete opposites. You're Al Potter and I'm Cassia Latimer; we're not supposed to get along."

Potter's breath was warm against my features. Eyes drifting shut, I saw an almost secretive smile curl his mouth before he whispered, "I guess it's lucky that we don't follow the rules, then."

And then he kissed me.

* * *

 _ **17:18**_

The thing about Potter was that he really wasn't my type. Growing up, I had always assumed I would follow in the footsteps of my ancestors and find men that were cool, calculating and, well, criminals.

Potter was not that. He had a temper, one that could explode out of him like the _Bombarda_ he'd hurled at the door. Like a true Gryffindor, he acted first and thought later, meaning that he was the kind of reckless that should have sent me running. I mean, just last month, he had literally thrown himself off his broom to catch the Snitch before Ravenclaw and had earned a nice old broken leg and arm for it.

He still managed to look smug when in pain.

But the thing about Potter was that he was also pretty interesting, though I was far from adjusting to the thought of admitting it out loud. He kept me on my toes, gave me with something new to work with, something other than Machiavellian maneouvers of my house mates. He was unpredictable and, while that unnerved me, he was surprisingly successful at persuading me to go against my instincts.

Seriously, the boy could snog like a Greek god.

If someone had asked me an hour ago whether I wanted to live out a cliché with none other than Al Potter, I would have flat out refused. But after living through it, I wasn't so sure about that anymore. Sometimes, clichés made you run head on at what could quite possibly be a trainwreck simply because it was the right thing to do, no matter how risky it felt. Made you realise that all that mattered was getting over your pride and giving into the sparks that flew between you and a certain Gryffindor. I guess what I was saying was that sometimes, clichés weren't so bad after all.

Especially if they came with green eyes and some fantastic snogging.

* * *

 **And** ** _fin_** **. Thoughts?**

 **xo**


End file.
